


Slayer's Dance

by Erinya



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: Bisexuality, Community: lgbtfest, F/F, LGBTQ Female Character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-05-22
Updated: 2008-05-22
Packaged: 2017-10-29 03:59:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,496
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/315564
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Erinya/pseuds/Erinya
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Buffy is confused.  Kennedy tells her to stop being an idiot.  Set post-<i>Chosen</i>, vaguely in Cleveland.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Slayer's Dance

**Author's Note:**

> Written for LGBTFest 2008. **Prompt:** 144\. Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Buffy Summers/Faith Lehane. Buffy realizes that there may be more to how she feels about Faith than she thought.

Slayer dreams aren't supposed to go like this.

It starts all right, with the hordes of darkness closing in on her, on _them_ , now, because she's no longer the Chosen One but one among many, and the ground opens up to swallow them, and then—

She's in her old room in her mother's house, a room that no longer exists, a pastel coverlet on the bed and Mr. Gordo leaning against the pillow. The sun's pouring in from the windows, and someone puts their arms around her from behind and says, "We're five by five, B." The brush of lips over her ear and down her neck makes her shudder, makes her knees buckle. She tries to turn, but Faith shoves her backwards, hard, onto the bed and then follows, sliding up Buffy's body to kiss her deeply, then back down, and down--

And then Buffy wakes up, breathing hard, warmth spreading through her like a full-body blush. Or like afterglow.

It's not the first time she's had this dream, either.

 _What the hell, brain_?

She wishes she'd paid more attention in psychology class. Or even to Giles' Slayer dream interpretation sessions. Wasn't everyone in a dream supposed to be a facet of the dreamer? Maybe it's that she _won't_ dream of Spike, and sometimes she thinks Faith smells almost but not quite like him, leather and cigarettes and other cravings. Maybe it's her subconscious mind trying to send her a message about something entirely different. About herself. But certainly not that she wants to have sex with Faith.

No, it couldn't be that.

* * *

Training feels good; she's a mess of undirected energy lately, what with so many Slayers to take shifts on patrols. She tries not to think about the images her dreaming mind gave her this morning as she blocks Faith's assault with her shinai, the sharp crack and sibilant slide of the bamboo swords like a syncopated rhythm. But Faith's words break her focus, and the next swing thwacks against her knuckles

"What do you mean, you're leaving?"

"I mean just that." Faith takes a step back from Buffy's redoubled attack, raises the shinai crossways to block the rain of blows. "I don't do the whole Slayer Army thing real well, B. You saw what happens when I lead, and I sure as hell don't follow well."

Buffy lets her sword drop. "But—you can't. The girls look up to you. I can't keep all of them in line and trained by myself!"

"Look, B," Faith says tightly, "it's not up for discussion, all right? I'm not one of your people. And I'm not asking for your permission." She tosses her sword at the rack, smiles with grim satisfaction as it falls perfectly into place. "I'm saying I'm done. I'm out. I'm over it, ok?" And she turns on her heel and strides from the room.

Buffy slams down her sword so hard it snaps like a toothpick. "That's right, walk away," she yells at Faith's departing back, all hard slim lines in black leather. "You were always a champion at that, weren't you? No reason to break your lifetime streak."

Faith doesn't answer her, doesn't look back, and Buffy, furious, hurls herself after her. And almost runs over Kennedy, who's standing just outside the door, looking interested.

Pounding footsteps up the stairs; Faith has taken them at a run. Buffy slows her steps, suddenly tired. She's screwed it up again. She never had learned the trick to talking to Faith about things that mattered; trying was always like throwing herself headlong against a brick wall. It left her feeling bruised and made no noticeable impression on the wall.

"Lover's quarrel?" Kennedy says from behind her.

Buffy starts and turns; blood thumps loud in her ears and heats her face. From the sparring and then from being really freaking pissed off, she decides. "What?" Yeah, it sounds stupid to her, too.

Kennedy leans against the doorjamb of the practice room with that sly smile of hers, as if she knows secrets that don't belong to her. Buffy briefly fantasizes about putting her fist through it, even though it's not her secret, whatever it is. Is it? "You and Faith," Kennedy says, and Buffy's heart does something funny in her chest. Not a leap; more like a flinch. "If I didn't know any better, I'd think there was something going on between the two of you."

"Something-- _oh_. No. There is no something. Definitely no something of any kind. We just—we have a history." No, that sounds bad, too. "Of trying to kill each other." _As if that ever stopped you, Slayer,_ her mind whispers in a dead man's voice, and she sucks in a breath, pushed the voice back down where it won't stay buried.

"Whoa, there. I didn't mean to pry." Kennedy holds her hands up in mock-surrender, but her half-smile says she did mean to, and is probably enjoying it. "Will says I have no brain-to-mouth filter. Don't mind me."

Buffy does and wishes she didn't, just like she wishes she didn't mind Kennedy using pet names for Willow. She should be happy that Willow has somebody. It's not as if she's jealous, right? And that's a whole different conversation she doesn't want to have with herself. "But what makes you think that Faith—that I--"

Kennedy gives her a look that says she thinks Buffy's made of stupid with extra special stupid sauce. "I know you'd rather pretend I wasn't dating your best friend, but at some point you must have noticed that I'm gay. That means I have gaydar. It's kind of like Slayer-sense, only it doesn't help you figure out who's a vampire."

"I know what gaydar is," Buffy says, stung. "I _am_ Willow's best friend. But yours needs resetting. I'm not a lesbian."

"I didn't say you were," Kennedy says. "Hell, you couldn't ping any more straight, vanilla, cisgendered Kinsey zero if you tried. Which in itself might be enough to make a girl wonder, you know? But those signals get a lot crossed when you're in the same room with Lehane. And that really makes a girl go 'hm.'"

"So you're saying, what? I'm bisexual?" Buffy stumbles over the word. She thinks uncertainly of stories overheard in college, of drunk girls kissing each other at the urging of equally drunken frat boys, of Willow making a self-conscious comment about baby dykes and Tara telling her in comforting tones that Willow shouldn't worry, she had skipped that step.

Kennedy's expression turns fierce. "Labels suck," she says. "I'm not going to tell you what you are, Buffy. Even I'm not that much of an asshole. I'm just saying, it's nothing to be ashamed of."

"I'm not," Buffy protests, but she's not sure what she's saying she isn't.

"Then you better get your wires uncrossed," Kennedy says, bluntly. "Because right now, it's fucking with her and it's fucking with you, and that fucks with everyone whether they know why or not."

"Faith _knows_?" It comes out as a squeak.

"Knows? No. You're giving her crazy mixed messages, though." Kennedy straightens, a gleam of amusement in her eyes. "And I'll tell you one thing my gaydar's not wrong on. You? Are definitely her type."

Buffy stares at her. Then she covers her face with her hands. "Oh, _crap_ ," she groans.

And to her surprise, a hand falls on her shoulder and squeezes, briefly. "Pretty much," Kennedy says, and she sounds almost sympathetic. "But I think if you run, you still might catch her. If you want to."

* * *

Outside, it's twilight, the orange glow of the streetlights not yet brighter than the blue-grey of the sky just after sunset. Buffy takes one of their familiar patrol routes in the hope that Faith has gone to blow off steam and not just gone. Her feet find their way automatically, though they haven't been in this city for long. Her mind is working furiously, piecing together the puzzle that Kennedy so unceremoniously turned upside down to reveal something both wholly new and deeply familiar.

_Faith leaned forward and blew on the glass, deliberate, suggestive, and Buffy suppressed a shiver, as if that warm breath had ghosted across her skin. She watched, unable to look away, as Faith's finger curved through the fog of her breath. A heart took shape, and behind it that wicked, lazy smile. An invitation._

_Chemistry tests had nothing on that promise._

The vivid memory sends a shock through Buffy, in places and ways she doesn't quite dare think about even now. No wonder Kennedy thinks she is a special brand of dumb. But she hadn't thought of it that way, not that day, not consciously. She had thought only that hanging with Faith was exhilarating and school was boring. And that maybe, sometimes, she wanted to be like Faith: free. Of responsibility, of obligation, of any concern other than the fierce joy of the hunt, of the kill.

What was the saying? Love like you've never been hurt before, dance like no one's watching?

She wasn't sure even now if Faith loved. But that's how she had danced, and how she Slayed; like no one was Watching. Like she _liked_ it.

_An admiring circle of boys surrounded them, but they moved in their own tight binary orbit, around one another. Faith laughed and shot her a look through dark eyelashes, sweat gleaming on her bare shoulders and the hollow between her collarbones, her hands skimming down her own body and her body arching under her hands. A challenge; Buffy lifted her arms over her head, dancing for her, and let the beat take her, release her from self-consciousness. And then fingers brushed her hip, a light touch across the bare skin between her ridden-up top and the waist of her jeans, and she opened her eyes. Faith was no longer looking at her; but none of the boys was close enough to have touched her._

Oh, God. It was so obvious in retrospect. And yet she had never looked directly at it, had pushed those moments and those thoughts, those wayward desires away so fast and so far that they never registered. Except she remembered them, now that she let herself.

So that's why Faith's betrayal had hurt so badly, why Buffy had wanted to hurt her back so much. She had tried so hard to reach Faith after the Deputy Mayor's death, and Faith had rejected her again and again. Had been so angry, as if somehow it were Buffy's fault, even though it wasn't really either of their fault, as if Buffy had betrayed _her_.

Buffy wonders if maybe she had. Mixed signals, or missed signals. And what if she hadn't been in such denial, then? What might have happened?

_In Faith's body, she had slowly shrugged off the other girl's tight t-shirt and then stilled when she caught a glimpse of the reflection in Giles' bathroom mirror. Faith hadn't worn a bra that day; her nipples, brown with wide areolas, hardened at the cool touch of air. Her breasts were round and pert and pale; under their curve, her ribs stood out slightly. She'd lost weight in the hospital._

_Buffy looked away, but not before she wondered whether Faith had looked at her body like this in the Summers' bathroom mirror, and what she thought of it._

They had fought each other time after time. Desperate and vicious. But somehow they'd never killed one another. Not quite.

_The sick give of flesh as the knife slid into Faith's belly, the look of surprise on her face; they stared at each other, frozen. And then Faith had half-leapt, half-fallen away, and Buffy had felt only relief. That she was gone, or that she had not died there under Buffy's hands? She hadn't known then. But later, alone, she'd wept for Faith, for what they could have been._

_Friends, of course. Nothing more than friends._

It hadn't been love between them. It never had a chance to get there. But it was something complicated, something about blood and want and need and the exhilaration of fighting side by side with an equal. Or fighting against one. Either way, they never had to hold back.

_"Come on, Slayer. You know you want to dance."_

"Shut up, Spike," she mutters. "This isn't about you anymore."

It's just then that her neck prickles with the vampire-sense. And Giles thinks she doesn't understand irony. A second later she hears the noise of a fight, the thump of a boot against flesh and a woman's grunt of pain, an inhuman snarl.

She turns the corner of the alley at a run to find Faith rising from a fighting crouch, brushing dust off of her jeans.

"A little late on the rescue, B."

"A little early for vampires," Buffy says, her heart pounding.

Faith shrugs, jerks her head at an open door leading down into darkness. "Yeah, well. Lazy bastards needed a wake-up call."

"Faith." Buffy's mouth is dry. "I need to tell you something. Ask you something."

"You told me to leave," Faith says. "Now you're gonna what, ask me to stay? Make up your mind, B."

"I think I finally have," Buffy says. She's standing in front of Faith now, and Faith's giving her a wary look. And Buffy's terrified. She thinks another Apocalypse would be easier to face than this. At least she'd know what to do.

"You and your Hallmark moments," Faith says, and rolls her eyes. "Out with it already, and then we can kiss and make up, ok?"

"I was thinking..." Buffy says slowly, "I was thinking we could just kiss." And she leans forward. She can hardly believe she's doing this.

But Faith steps back. "Nuh uh," she says, and there's a new note in her voice, or maybe a tremor. "I'm not going to be your experiment, B, just because someone told you I switch-hit. That's not my game."

"I know," Buffy says, off-balance, but she holds Faith's gaze, which is still guarded and waiting. No going back now, or she'll screw it up even more. "Kennedy told me that I was messing with your head. And I didn't mean to. I didn't even know...Whatever. What matters is that I've always...and I know now. And I'm sorry. But I was hoping that I hadn't missed my chance."

Somewhere in there, she might have made a fraction of sense. Maybe. Faith stares, and then laughs. "So Kennedy told you we should get a room?"

"Basically," Buffy says, squirming inside and trying not to show it. Faith doesn't want her, after all; she's laughing at her. If Kennedy set her up for a fall...

"Actually," Faith says speculatively, "I'm thinking this wall will do just fine for now."

And then Faith does kiss her. It's a little like dancing, and a little like fighting, and a lot like something new entirely.

Buffy doesn't hold back.


End file.
